1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a cooking apparatus and more particularly to a new and novel self-supporting, free standing rotisserie cooking apparatus which is freely moveably mounted atop a barbeque grill or the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art and Objects
It is conventional to serve prepared pieces of food, such as meat and vegetables by mounting them on the length of a skewer blade. It is rather conventional to mount pieces of meat and vegetables such as tomatoes, mushrooms and peppers along the blades.
Sometimes, uncooked food is initially placed on the blades which are then manually placed above a heated grill and periodically manually rotated
It frequently occurs that the skewered food which is cooked in this fashion is not evenly cooked because not all portions of the food are subjected to the same amount of heat from the heat source. Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide new and novel skewered food cooking apparatus for rotatably driving food supporting skewers.
Skewered food cooking apparatus such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,154,154 issued to Weldon B. Vivian in May 15, 1979 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,442,202 issued to Taizo Ishida on May 6, 1969, have been provided heretofore, however, such apparatus is not free standing and freely supported on the grills but rather are clamped thereto. Substantial effort is required to mount such devices on a grill and thus fall into disfavor. Accordingly, it is another object of the present invention to provide skewered cooking apparatus of the type described which is self-supporting, freely moveable, and easily and quickly installed on and removed from a grill on which it is supported.
There is no uniformity between the sizes and shapes of barbeque grills. Accordingly, it is yet another object of the present invention to provide a portable skewer cooking apparatus of the type described which is adjustable in size to accommodate and fit on various sized cooking grills.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide skewer cooking apparatus of the type described which includes a box-like hollow frame that is adjustable and is freely supported by, and readily removeable from, a grill on which it is supported.
The U.S. Pat. No. 4,982,657 issued to George Ghenic on Jan. 8, 1991 discloses a hot dog roaster which cantileverly supports hot dogs above a grill via a plurality of laterally spaced, rotatably driven support elements. This construction, as does the construction illustrated in the aforementioned Vivian Patent, cantileverly supports the food supporting rods. The placement of many food items on an individual skewer presents a substantial mass which presents substantial bearing problems to the rotatable food support skewers. Accordingly, it is a still further object of the present invention to provide cooking apparatus of the type described which rotatably supports a plurality of rotatable skewers at opposite ends on an adjustable box like frame.
Motorized drive units have been provided for driving the terminal ends of skewer blades such as that disclosed in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 3,442,202. Typically, the grill will be heated for a substantial time before and after the actual cooking of the food. Repeated heating and cooling of drive motors, which are mounted on the rear wall of the grill, can crystallize electrical components. Accordingly, it is another object of the present invention to provide a skewered cooking apparatus of the type described which will increase the life of a motorized drive unit utilized to rotate the skewer blades.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide skewered cooking apparatus of the type described including a motorized drive unit which is detachably mounted on a skewer rotatable mounted on a freely moveable grill supported frame.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide cooking apparatus of type described which mounts the drive motor, for rotating a plurality of food carrying, rotary, drivingly coupled skewer blades, on one of the skewer blades.
Other U.S. patents which disclose the state of the art as known to applicant at the time of the filing of this application are as follows:
______________________________________ 3,404,621 Leach Dec. 12, 1966 3,939,761 McGinty Feb. 24, 1976 3,866,527 Katris Feb. 18, 1975 3,848,523 Galisz et al Nov. 19, 1974 4,158,991 Nakashima Jun. 26, 1979 4,403,595 Maesk Sep. 13, 1983 4,760,776 Beidler Aug. 2, 1988 ______________________________________
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art as the description thereof proceeds.